Nick Marrone is vice president of the Seafarers International Union’s West Coast Region.
The Long Island, N.Y. native began his SIU career in 1975, when he graduated from the trainee program at what now is named the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education, located in Piney Point, Md.
He sailed as an AB before coming ashore in 1978 to work as an instructor at the Paul Hall Center. A year later, he became the union’s port agent in Piney Point. Marrone was assigned to the SIU hall in Paducah, Ky. in 1980-81.
During the mid-1980s, Marrone worked in various capacities for U.S.-flag shipping companies, including a stint as district manager for Lykes Bros.
In 1988, he became director of military operations for the Transportation Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization devoted to maritime research, education and promotion.
Marrone rejoined the SIU in 1990 as the director of the union’s legislative and governmental affairs department. From 1992-96, he served as administrator the Seafarers Plans. He then returned to the Paul Hall Center to work as the school’s vice president until 1998, when he was appointed West Coast vice president (a post to which he was elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004).
Marrone is active in the San Francisco Central Labor Council, the Alameda Central Labor Council, the California State Labor Federation and the Propeller Club of San Francisco. He helped develop the union’s safety school in Honolulu, and he also assisted in some of the behind-the-scenes work that helped lead to construction of the Joseph Sacco Fire Fighting and Safety School in Piney Point (an extension of the Paul Hall Center campus).